I don't know what to do with my face!

Hello again! It's me again this week, because Katharine has informed us that she needs time to prepare herself for the great task that is blogging. Also, she just got new yarn, so we should probably leave that girl alone so she has time to knit. She's made some progress on her thrummed mittens, and rightly so, because the weather is starting to turn!

After that, a sweater will be on its way, as well as some socks, and even a cowl! She is going to (and I'm making it blog-official so don't forget, Katharine!) bring the new yarn to show us next week. If everyone else brings some exciting yarn from their stash, we can all pet new yarn, and take pictures! I think my whole entire stash is a little too big for transport right now, and I'm sure I'm not alone (I hope I'm not alone. It keeps me from having to admit that I have a problem...) but I'll probably bring some highlights!

In other Very Exciting news, we have a new member!

This is Margaret (Margaret, I'm sorry if I've spelled your name wrong, I didn't think to ask how you spell it...that's how my cousin spells her name though, so I took a guess...) Margaret moved here recently from D.C. (which is cool! Also it is bigger than Kirksville...) and she works at A.T. Still. She is working on a very lovely looking scarf, whose stitch pattern makes it look like it's made of a bunch of little fans! How neat is that!


Madeline is making pretty epic progress on her sweater- It's the cotton/wool blend that felt more like cotton, so its blocking behavior was pretty questionable. I bet we're going to find out how blocking went soon, though, because it's nearly finished!

I am so excited about that stitch pattern! I can't wait to take the first finished-object picture of the new school year! I wish I had as much time to knit as Madeline does. I am working on that, though. Also, apparently this sweater has been officially played with by at least one of Madeline's dogs, so I'd say its an official part of the family now! I think I'd be rather upset with my dog if she tried to play with something I was knitting...although she's not a huge fan of chewing things up, so much as just taking them, and keeping anyone else from having them.

The ever-persistent Clara has begun winding yet another ball of fantastic fun fur in a new color. The rather unfortunate side effect of this is that she hasn't had time to make more progress on the Tube.

Look! a new furry necklace in a new color!

Mary is working on making her accent scarf even longer:

Look at that! We're going to start approaching Doctor Who scarf length here before too much longer!

Lena is making a hat:

That yarn looks like it will make a very warm hat indeed! Also, according to Lena, apparently the french toast muffins at the SUB are quite tasty. Trust me, there was much excitement.
 Jordan is plugging away on those golf club cozies- how many cozies make a set? Six, maybe? Or does it depend on the set? I don't know much about golf, but thanks to Jordan, I do know a thing or two about golf club cozies. At any rate, one's done, and another one started, so I'd say progress is definitely being made!

I also took a group picture- I apparently was very thorough, and made Jordan nervous... she didn't know what to do for the picture, which led to the title of this very blog post- I think she did alright though:

"I don't know what to do with my face!"

everybody's faces look thoroughly occupied with their knitting, so all is well!

I finished the front of my sweater while we were gathered:

Rainbows are cool! I used just over 2 balls of yarn, although I really didn't want to go over 2... I was about to start the back of the sweater, but I realized that all my other balls of yarn are wound backwards! Instead of the colors going purple, blue, green, pink, aqua, they go aqua, pink, green, blue, purple! I guess I'm not an expert on yarn factories (other than that they are magical places and if I had to choose one place to live for the rest of my life, it would probably be a yarn factory...) but I'm a little confused at them for winding some balls one way and some backwards. Regardless, I have realized that I'm going to need more yarn to finish this project, especially if I'm going to make the stripes in the sleeves match each other like I am for the front and the back. That's been ordered today (along with more yarn. I won't admit I have a problem. ) but in the meantime, I need to work on getting the back of the sweater's stripes to match up with the front, which is proving to be a task in itself. I really want this to be done before it starts getting too cold out! I need a defense against the Kirksville winter!

Next week's blog will include a discussion on improvisational knitting tools, and little things knitters do that most other people wouldn't do. We talked a little about it this week as we were leaving, because I told a story about using a crochet hook as a cable needle, with most pleasing results. Also, I'd like to let you all know that I found a cable needle under my pillow today while I was looking for my glasses...I bet that doesn't happen to non-knitters...

By next week's blog I mean the next time I blog- unless Katharine would like to blog about it- if Katharine is blogging next week. You and I will both find out together- it's all rather confusing.

Dear Kaylin (and everyone, but especially Kaylin): if you would like to see pictures of a cute baby wearing a cute knitted thing, you should go to the yarn harlot blog, because there is a cute baby waiting for you there. I think it was the post on September 18th. That blog post makes me want to go make friends with the people that eat breakfast at the same time I do in the dining hall every morning. They have a baby. It too, is very cute, but I have not witnessed it wearing any knitted things.

About yarn

Well, this is new. I usually get really excited to read the Stitch n' Bitch blog post- and, if such a thing is possible, now I'm even more excited to write it! And so...without further ado...

This week at Stitch n' Bitch, the theme seemed to be new projects: Katharine has begun thrumming her second mitten:

Check that out! Progress is being made!

And while she's working on that, she's waiting on a whole bunch of yarn to come from KnitPicks! There will be a new sweater, new socks, and lots of other stuff too! We will be informed of the colors and types of yarn next week when it gets here. I get so excited about new yarn- even when it's not mine! (More on that later. Yarn is very exciting stuff.) Clara was hard at work balling her new eyelash yarn so that it can be added to the tube:

The ball is getting bigger!

That stuff seems to be rather unruly, but she worked hard the whole time! I'm sure its contribution to the tube will be well worth her efforts. Mary is making an accent scarf, that is more or less just something that this yarn wanted to be:

Check out that cable! And such a pretty color.

Mary also gave Clara a lesson on sleeping during class in high school. The key is that you have to be able to get away with it! I'm pretty sure the key to all good things in life is not getting caught.

 While I was admiring the progress that Aric was making on his scarf, Mary commented that the stigma that the world puts on male knitters is so unfortunate. Come on world! It wasn't always that way. During the Renaissance, workers were divided into guilds according to what they did: there was a woodworker's guild, a stone carver's guild, a weaver's guild, and even a knitting guild! Of course, that was back when women weren't allowed to work, so only men were allowed to knit. They mostly knit woolen stockings to combat the cold winters. It didn't take long for women to start knitting too, but that doesn't mean men stopped- If a man wanted a sweater, he could make his own!
I did some research because I was curious, and it looks like it was around the 1940s that knitting became strictly feminine. Girls were taught how to knit in school until the 1980s, and the rest is history :) Speaking of men who knit, here's one right now!

Scarf progress!

His first scarf is coming along nicely- Did he mention he is using the Norwegian purl? It's this clever little twist thing you do so that you can hold the yarn at the back for knitting as well as purling, instead of switching it back and fourth. He says he knows some physics friends who knit, but let's see if we can get them to come to Stitch n' Bitch!

Meanwhile, Jordan has informed us that she will be doing yet another set of golf club cozies (covers? I don't think a golf club necessarily needs to be cozy...) for her very lucky father. That man must collect golf clubs the way I collect yarn! I think Jordan's the one that needs to knit things for herself now!

Look at that smile! Despite knitting the same thing again and again!

At least this set is supposed to be his Christmas present. One less thing to worry about!

I've been hard at work on my rainbow sweater. I'm very worried that I won't have enough yarn, but on the other hand, I've never not been very worried that I won't have enough yarn- and I think it might be too early to tell at this point. I'm also lucky to be able to work on it during at least one class every day. Jordan and I discussed an idea that came to me while I was there- I have a plan for my rainbow sweater. Last week, Madeline posted the picture I took of my sweater progress next to my fabulously decorated hot chocolate from Costa Rican- well, it turned out to be really good hot chocolate, so I'm going to make a weekly thing out of it- to go and get hot chocolate there, and take a hipster picture of it next to my sweater progress. This way, I'll have a week by week account of the growth of my sweater! The very last picture will be when I finish the sweater, and I'll be wearing it while drinking my hot chocolate! It'll be cold enough for that, by the time I finish. I like this plan very much.

I'm having a very hard time not starting other projects right now- I know my sweater will never get done if I do. I have all this yarn and it's just staring at me...waiting to be something warm and toasty.

I did something bad the other day. I was on Ravelry, and I clicked on one of the ads. You should never click on yarn ads unless you have miraculous amounts of money in your yarn budget to spend. But I clicked anyways. here's where I went: http://shop.nerdgirlyarns.com/ And it was magnificent! All the yarn colors she sells are colorways inspired by nerdy TV shows and movies! There are some Monty Python yarn colors- my favorite is the red and white one called 'it's just a harmless little bunny'- and there are some Firefly yarns (yayy!). Mostly and very importantly, there are a whole lot of Doctor Who yarns! Colors for every Doctor, a lot of the companions, a selection of different sonic screwdriver colorways, and....drumroll... A TARDIS color! TARDIS blue. The very best blue of all. I am keeping myself from buying some until I finish the rainbow sweater. The last thing I need right now is more yarn to distract me...

So! How'd I do? I tend to ramble a little when I start having conversations with myself, which is basically exactly what a blog is.  A conversation with yourself that involves pictures.

Is this thing on?

Well, Stitch N Bitch has seen a lot of change since May.  First off, we started meeting again, that's been going well.  We switched our meeting days to meet at 7pm on Tuesdays (still in the SUB HUB-come join us).  We lost some members (we're looking at you Kaylin) and gained some.  Finally, we're going to work on a rotating blogger plan.  I'd say I'll keep you posted but hopefully we all will.

Our first meeting was quite exciting, there were firemen, sirens and mass hysteria!  OK, that last bit was an exaggeration.  There was a fire drill in the SUB and I panicked a little bit when I couldn't find everyone post evacuation.

Lena & Mary knit right through the fire emergency.

Luckily, it just took a bit of wandering around the outside of the SUB to find our crew comfortably knitting on the grass.  Apparently, I just missed Sweet Nothings finishing up their practice just behind our knitting circle!  Darn the luck!

I did make it in time to catch up on everyone's summer vacation report.  Mary & Clara both agree that while their summer was relaxing their dog had the most enjoyable time.  Kat stayed in Kirksville (what bravery!) and worked for JBA and on arty things.  I was around, mostly working, but with some fun having!  The rest of the night proved to be less excited than watching the firemen wander around on Franklin with axes but it sure was wonderful to see everyone again!

On Friday Kaylin arrived all the way from Murray, KY to visit for the long weekend & of course to knit.  Everyone who stayed in Kirksville for the weekend met up at Costa Rican Coffee to knit away a good portion of a drizzly Saturday afternoon.  There was delicious food, hot drinks and great conversation.  

Clara impressed everyone with her tube!  Even me, though I look furious in the background!

Kat captured the feel of the gathering & her stripey, cabley rainbow sweater.

It was just a wonderful weekend.  We hung out with friends, stuffed ourselves with gluten free blueberry cake and watched so much BBC we may have developed accents for part of Sunday!

Sadly, we did not recreate this moment, no matter how much Bella begged!

Yesterday we had our 3rd meeting of the semester (wow already)!  Katherine was kind enough to bring some delicious oatmeal caramel bars, I even brought one home for Mr. Nash, who was quite impressed.

Jordan II showed off the amount of hair she can grow in a summer.  Cute!

Jordan is making great progress on a crocheted blanket (and growing hair) to keep her warm in her big kid apartment this winter.  Katherine has started on her second of her maybe not so doomed thrummed mittens.  Clara continued her tube, it might well be a house cozy soon.  Kat is working on the third starting of her rainbow sweater--I forgot to snap a photo of the progress, I owe you!  Aric is plugging away on a scarf.  Mary has been experimenting with linen blend but it has not yet revealed its final destiny.  I've been working on making a not your boyfriend's sweater while debating the merits of doing so in a wool/cotton blend!

Typical and exciting all at the same time!